Simple Faith

Guest (Male): Hello and welcome to Simple Faith with Pastor Bill Henry, coming to you from Simple Faith Calvary Chapel in Vancouver, Washington. Today, we bring you Pastor Bill's weekly prophecy update. He'll be taking a look at current events, and he's going to share how they relate to end times prophecy we read in the Bible. Obviously, there's a lot going on in the world, so let's get right to it. Here's Pastor Bill.

Bill Henry: Well, hello and welcome once again to Simple Faith Radio. What a blessing it is to be here with you again today. My goodness, so many things happening in the world today. It's breathtaking, flabbergasting, if you will. I just pray you're doing well.

It was funny, I was praying about, "Lord, what would you have me do on the program this weekend?" and my heart was almost like I just wish I could sit down with every one of you listening today and just say, "Hey, how are you doing? How's your walk with Jesus? How are you holding up in this world? How's your family? How's your single life? Or how's this or that, and what's the Lord doing in your life and showing you?" Just to encourage you.

Honestly, that's why I take this live spot, even though we record this, it's still recorded within a few days of broadcast, just to touch base with what's happening in the world. I don't want to go too far because we don't have that much time to talk about a lot of the events in the world, but right now we have the war in Iraq happening. I know it's not officially a war, but the conflict or whatever you want to say.

Headlines came out and Israel attacks Iran, and then next thing you know, it's actually not just Israel, it's the United States. Then Ayatollah Khamenei was killed, and leadership got together a few days ago to vote in somebody else and they were all wiped out. Just keep all these things in prayer, keep these things covered in prayer. I've been asked, "Pastor Bill, what do you think about prophetical stuff? How's this happening prophecy wise?"

If you've listened to me at all, you know that I'm not into the hyper stuff. I came out of hyper-Pentecostalism, hyper-charismatic stuff. I still believe in the gifts of the Spirit today, but sadly so many have taken and hijacked even the gifts of the Holy Spirit. It's kind of the same with prophecy. I think some have hijacked prophecy and they go off into these really crazy things.

There was a blood moon I had a friend of mine, Calvary Pastor Chris Quintana, was talking about yesterday. He posted a thing, he survived another blood moon. Because if you notice, every time there's a blood moon, a lot of these hyper people prophecy wise go crazy. So I always try to be very careful. Yes, there's going to be a blood moon, we read about that in Joel, but it's going to be such a thing where you can't explain it away. It's not going to be scientifically to go, "Well, this happens once every so many years." This is going to be something miraculous that gets the attention of the whole world.

We have to be wise in our interpretation of the prophecies. Even though I believe in them literally, I believe they're literally going to happen as we see in the book of Revelation, back in Ezekiel, etc. What's playing out before us with Iran prophetically? Well, that's Persia. That's where ancient Persia was. It's interesting that we saw all the different things that happened in Esther, the book of Esther, and even just a few days ago, the Jewish people celebrate that event. That actually happened in Persia.

I find that very interesting. And yet, here's the thing: right now we don't see anything prophetical, except for maybe wars and rumors of wars. Could this lead to something, a greater conflict? Of course, any war could always do that. Any conflict can do that. But again, we look at it and we keep it in prayer first and foremost.

The interesting thing is a lot of us sadly as Christians can get so caught up in the things of this world, and I know a lot of Christians who become so fearful or they become this or that. Some are so over-involved in politics. To be honest, I find actually I find a few that are like that. It's more I find more that go the other way. They're so afraid of politics that they don't even vote.

It's a terrible thing within the Christian world. I believe it's a sin. It's one of the talents that we read of in Matthew 25 and other places that God has given us to use for His glory. Anyways, when we go that way, when we go too far one way or the other, let's say just with politics, we're not being used for the glory of God.

Some people get so into talk radio and they're watching the news all the time or this or that as Christians. We have to be careful with that because it's so easy to become afraid or become angry. Those are usually the two responses: fear or anger. A lot of us become angry at what's happening. We see all the lies, everything happening with the Epstein files, and the Clintons are just testifying and so many untruths and flat out lies. You're just like, "Oh my goodness, Lord, get them saved, Lord Jesus." It just goes on and on.

But here's the thing: our hope isn't in politics. Now again, I'm one that says we should go out and be very involved in politics as Christians. That's part of how our country is. Remember, this is a government that is of the people, by the people, for the people. And yet the elites and the media would have you think no, it's not like that at all. It's just a democracy. No, we're a democratic republic. Actually, excuse me, that's not even really true. We're a constitutional republic. We're run by the Constitution, not by democracy. We use democracy in different facets underneath that, underneath the Constitution, but the vote of the people doesn't overrule the Constitution.

My point is, be careful about getting caught up in all these things. Be careful about becoming fearful. You turn it all off and you don't know what to pray for, you don't know who to be. But again, we don't have a lot of power. Most of us listening on this program, if any of us, like really geo-politically, we can't get up and people listen to us speak and "Okay, let's stop this or let's do that" within the world scene.

But in our prayers, on our knees in our prayer closets, the God of this universe hears us. Again, we're seeking His perfect will in all this, not ours. I'm not God, you're not God, we don't know everything. So we always temper our prayers. "Lord, not mine, but Thy will be done." We have to be careful because these days that we're living in, they're very evil. They're very deceitful.

I was watching a video yesterday and this fellow was warning people, "Hey, be careful of what you see on this war in Iran." He showed this video of all these bombs hitting this city like it had to be at least 15 to 20, just three at a time or four at a time just coming down, raining down from heavens and just boom, the same place, boom, boom, boom. And he goes after it was done, he goes, "You know that was AI." And I'm sitting there going, "What? That was AI?" And it freaked me out, but then, man, the deception.

So we're praying. If you want to know how to pray for this, if I can encourage you as a pastor, pray first of all for peace, but also pray for our troops. For the safety of our troops, pray for the wisdom of our leaders, and whether they want God's wisdom or not, let God's will be done. Pray for that. Pray for the people of Israel, their safety as they're being bombed and many have been killed there already.

Then pray, don't forget to pray for Iran, the people of Iran. Pray that God's Spirit would move mightily, that many Iranians would come to Christ in the midst of this. Pray for their safety and pray for the wicked regime to be overthrown, that terrible regime that they have there just so based in Islam, just wicked and oppressive and demonic. Pray against that. Pray also, lastly, I've been praying for a good government to be installed. That's going to be the tricky thing, isn't it? So we just pray for all these things.

The beautiful thing is God uses our prayers for His glory. But also, if I can encourage you guys and gals, it's so funny I was reading in Hebrews chapter 3, and it says in verse 12, "Take care, brothers, lest there be in any of you an evil, unbelieving heart leading you to fall away from the living God."

I watched an interview with Amy Grant the other day and I used to, when I was a young Christian back in 1982, '83, she was one of the cassettes I remember buying. Along with all my punk rock Christian stuff: Undercover and 441 and some others. But she was one of the more mellow ones, Keith Green, that were worshipful to me.

It's so sad to see where she's gone, so far away from biblical Christianity. Even in the interview, she was saying some things that just weren't biblical, and it was really sad to me. It's interesting though, most people who kind of go away from the faith, it's like notice it's this kind of gradual falling away most of the time. It's not just this all of a sudden this great event and they're gone. Most of the time it's this kind of general or gradual fading away.

I think as we're warned here in Hebrews 3, it talks about we have to be careful that there be in any of us an evil or an unbelieving heart leading us to fall away from the living God. You see, our whole what we walk in with Christ is all based on faith. It's not based on unbelief. Unbelief is the opposite of faith. And we need to, again especially in these days that we're living, be men and women of faith.

Again, not word faith, not the "name it and you'll claim it" garbage or the "speak it and it will happen" or the "manifestation if you manifest it with your words." That's so ungodly, unbiblical, and if you're hearing me say this and you're getting mad when I say that, repent of those false beliefs. It's just crazy stuff.

We need to remember that God is God. We are not God. We're not little gods as some falsely was it Steven Furtick and some of the others, Bill Johnson down in Redding? No, we're not little gods. Benny Hinn, we could keep going on and on. We are not little gods. We are children of the living God.

It's almost like with I came out of Catholicism and they'd always tell us that Mary was the Mother of God. Nowhere once in the Bible is Mary called the Mother of God. She's called the mother of Jesus, and I firmly believe that's on purpose that God did that as He's breathing out the scriptures.

So too, we have to be careful with all these things, guys and gals, in these days to have faith, to have real faith, biblical faith. Not word faith junk, not hyper this, but at the same time don't go the other side. Well because they're taking these things so out of context that we're not going to believe in the gifts of the Holy Spirit, or we're not going to believe what the Bible says because we don't want to be too word faith-y.

It gets confusing, doesn't it? Man, that's why I love the Bible. Whenever I get confused, I open up the Bible and I start to read because it's so unconfusing. It's so just black and white. I just love that the Lord gave us these 66 books that we call the Bible.

Even at church these next few weeks we're doing a series on the Bible, on the Bible: Our Sword, and that's basically what I'm calling it. We're just going to teach the real basics of how to use your Bible and where the Bible came from will be this Sunday. We'll have this whole series on it. It's going to be more like a class in seminary, which we don't normally do. We're usually going verse by verse through a book on Sunday mornings. But it's just really important to me that God's people are discipled, and that's what I consider Sunday mornings, Wednesday nights are discipleship sessions. That they're discipled in how to use these things because a lot of Christians still don't know.

I know Christians that are 80 years old that don't understand that there are certain things in their Bible that they can use to enhance their Bible study. They don't know about Bible versions or they don't know about commentaries or "What's a concordance?" or "How do I fast and how do I look that up? What is that called? Oh, what's a Bible dictionary?" So we're going to be doing that so we're not falling away, if you will. We're basing everything that we believe upon the word of God.

Let's come back to that thing, an unbelieving heart leading you to fall away from the living God. A lack of faith always leads us away from God. If you remember it was by faith that Abraham was accounted righteous before God. It wasn't when he went to offer his son Isaac that he was counted righteous. No, it was by faith. He acted then in that faith, he put basically traction to his faith by going to live it out.

Let's live out our faith. Let's not have an unbelieving heart, especially toward the Word of God. Let's believe what God has told us in His Word. There's a reason that so many pulpits do not teach the Bible every Sunday morning and Wednesday night. I'm not saying they don't mention the Bible, but they don't teach the Bible.

You need to find a church that is teaching the Word of God, discipling you, and that you can go to and you can stir one another up to love and a good works. You can be discipled, you can serve there, you can tithe there, you can become involved in that fellowship and just be part of the body of Christ. Because it goes on to say, leading you to fall away from the living God, but exhort one another every day, as long as it is called today, that none of you may be hardened by the deceitfulness of sin.

You see, even as Christians, remember this is the writer of Hebrews, he's writing to Christians, specifically Hebrew Christians, but it applies to all of us because we've been grafted in. So remember that our hearts even as Christians can be hardened by the deceitfulness of sin. What's the antidote to the hardness? The softening by the oil of the Holy Spirit of God.

We need to remember that and to be filled afresh with His Holy Spirit so we're not deceived. We go back to the Word of God because that is our light, that shows us the path, that helps us to not be deceived. It's interesting because Jesus said in the last days there'll be a lot of deceit happening, and because of lawlessness increasing, he said that many hearts will harden or wax cold.

I like how the old King James says it, where wax cold. When I was a kid I was an altar boy. We one of the funnest things, there was two fun things when you're an altar boy. First of all, if you got to ring the bells during Mass, that was one of the things you get to sign up for. And secondly, if you got to carry the candles because when at the end of Mass, you'd bring them in the back and all of us would blow the candles out because they were big honking candles, and you'd dip your fingers in the wax. Then you'd do it several times until the wax started to harden.

You see, once that flame was blown out, the wax began to harden. Guys and gals, we need to be walking in the Spirit of God so that we are not those that have our hearts hardened by the deceitfulness that we see around us. The deceitfulness of sin, that's what it does: sin hardens our hearts.

We have to be careful even as Christians to come to the Word of God and make sure that we're not walking in sin, that we're not winking at sin or agreeing, "Well, you know it's okay if my son or daughter is homosexual, it's not really that clear in the Bible" and this and that and we start to we're deceiving ourselves because we think that we're loving our kids instead of just saying, "Johnny, I love you. Mary, I love you. Michael or Joe or Herm, I love you, but here's the thing: this is sin and this is what God says is sin and I love you enough to tell you because I want to see you in heaven."

Again, we have to be careful because we will be hated because of the message of the gospel. It is offensive to the world, but at the same time it's life. It's light. In these times as they grow darker, may we grow lighter. We are the light of the world, and may we just be filled more and more with the Spirit of God. May our speech seasoned with grace, and that by the Word of God as we work in God's word to our everyday conversations because we're so just saturated.

We can stand firm in these days even though it's getting crazy and it's out of control. It is, it's not out of control in the eyes of God. For God, as we like to say some I heard somebody say this years ago: we think everything's falling out of place, for Him it's falling into place.

Again, that comes back to our faith. Don't let your heart be hardened. Let's be those who don't have these unbelieving hearts leading us to kind of fall away from the living God. Then come back, repent, do the things you did at the beginning, return to your first love. Maybe you've never come to that place. Maybe you've just been religious and you need to repent of your sins, turn away from them and turn to Jesus Christ. Believe that Jesus died on the cross for your sins. Believe that God raised Him from the dead on the third day. Believe in Him to be the Lord, the Savior of your life and be born again of the Spirit of God.

Then come to the Word, go to find a church. I don't care if you have to drive two hours to go to a church, drive two hours to find a good Bible-teaching, loving and don't forget the loving part too, because it can be full of Bible and then just be cold as a stone, or you can be hot as a fire in one way in love, but then you're just dead as a doornail as far as the things of the Word of God, so your love goes off and it's led by emotions instead of the Word of God.

Again, if I can encourage you as we're reading through this: be careful of these things especially in the days we're living in, that as that wax can grow harder and harder, that our hearts aren't growing harder and harder. That we are letting the Holy Spirit, we're being filled day by day, that we are going out and being the witnesses that we're called to be, we are making disciples, we are being discipled, we are doing what Christ has shown us what to do and how to live and by His Holy Spirit through the wonders of His Word.

It's so neat on Sunday we were talking about just the last part of the Sermon on the Mount and in Matthew chapter 7, and as Jesus comes to an end, He said, "And when Jesus finished these sayings, the crowds were astonished at his teaching, for he was teaching them as one who had authority and not their scribes."

Can I encourage you as we're closing, remember that Jesus Christ has all authority. He's revealed it through His Word. We should still be amazed at His teaching every time we open up the Bible, every time we recite a memorized scripture, every time we hear the Bible taught it should amaze us, and it should also remind us that Jesus is our authority, especially as His children. He's also the authority of the world. He's in charge. Nothing is happening that is outside His purview.

Beloved in Christ as we close, I just want to encourage you to keep your hearts warm, keep the fires tended. Make sure you turn off the social media a little bit more, you turn off the radio perhaps especially talk radio a lot more, and some of the news a little more or a lot more, just depends on where you're at, and turn on the things of God more. Open your Bible more, listen to Bible studies, listen to Christian radio like you're doing right now. Lord bless you for doing that. Such an encouragement. Be encouraged today, Jesus Christ is still on the throne and He will never be usurped. He is over all of these things and let us be about our Father's business. As we like to say, the Lord bless you, the Lord keep you, make His face shine upon you, be gracious unto you. And as I like to close, we'll see you here, there, or in the air. God bless you.

Guest (Male): This has been Simple Faith with Pastor Bill Henry from Simple Faith Calvary Chapel in Vancouver, Washington. Today, we brought you Pastor Bill's weekend prophecy update. It's our sincere hope and prayer that you've been blessed by the words you heard from Pastor Bill today.

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Here at Simple Faith Calvary Chapel, we have three services on Sunday morning at 8:00, 9:45, and 11:30. We also have a great time of studying God's Word on Wednesday night at 7:00. For more information and directions, go to simplefaith.org. You can also follow us on Facebook and Instagram. Thanks for joining us today, be sure to join us next time here on Simple Faith with Pastor Bill Henry, brought to you by Simple Faith Calvary Chapel in Vancouver, Washington.